upend
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to set on end, as a barrel or ship.
-
to affect drastically or radically, as tastes, opinions, reputations, or systems.
-
to defeat in competition, as in boxing or business.
verb (used without object)
-
to become upended.
-
to place the body back-end up, as a dabbling duck.
verb
-
to turn or set or become turned or set on end
-
(tr) to affect or upset drastically
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
upendsimple
-
upendssimple
-
have upendedperfect
-
has upendedperfect
-
am upendingprogressive
-
are upendingprogressive
-
is upendingprogressive
-
have been upendingperfect progressive
-
has been upendingperfect progressive
Past
-
upendedsimple
-
had upendedperfect
-
was upendingprogressive
-
were upendingprogressive
-
had been upendingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of upend
Explanation
When you upend something, you flip it over or tip it on one side. Tell your sister you won't play checkers with her anymore if she continues to upend the board angrily every time she loses. To move the table from one room to another, you might have to upend it so it'll fit through the door, resting it on one end. The other way to upend something is to invert it, or turn it onto the opposite side, the way you upend a bottle of root beer over a glass or upend your school bag and shake the contents onto your bed to find that lost pack of gum.
Vocabulary lists containing upend
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Yet the cost of that excitement can upend a well-structured financial plan, Orr says.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
Be Prepared: How many jobs will AI upend?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
Lau argued that Congress could not have intended to give individual border agents such vast discretion to upend the lives of green-card holders.
From Slate ● Jun. 23, 2026
“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” KTRK-TV said in the filing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
They would upend the Mona Lisa investigation—and they would change the course of modern art.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
Oil demand is also set to contract by 80,000 barrels a day this year, “as Iran war upends our global outlook,” it added.
From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026
The cold spell upends what had actually been a tepid winter, which along with rising Appalachia and Permian gas production, has driven what’s still a 32% decline in natural gas prices from their December peak.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 20, 2026
As AI upends some of their business functions, India's billion-dollar IT firms will become a key area of "vulnerability", according to Jefferies.
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2025
The Piney Woods experience upends much of the conventional wisdom on what’s needed to educate low-income black students.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
Trust him to cling to the surfboard as it upends in the froth of the latest wave.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Volkswagen’s traditional business model of developing cars in Germany to sell around the world has been upended by rising costs in Europe, new tariffs in the U.S., and the emergence of globally competitive Chinese technology.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
Ahmed created, wrote and produced this limited series about a struggling actor whose life is upended when rumors circulate he might be the next James Bond.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
July 4 fell during a record-breaking heat wave that upended the parades, block parties and barbecues that traditionally mark Independence Day.
From Barron's ● Jul. 6, 2026
"Our colleagues are plugging gaps, doing the impossible, working too many hours to back-fill, are experiencing burnout and ill health and have their private lives upended," Mr Kelly said.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
There was nothing to sit upon in the shed but upended dough buckets, but they sufficed.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
Forces — some visible, some harder to see — are upending literature and education itself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Do that enough, and climate change could be curtailed without upending the world as we know it.
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2026
His grandfather had fled their village in 1948 to avoid being conscripted in the civil war that was upending millions of lives.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
Surging demand from data centers, mostly driven by artificial intelligence, is upending the power-generation and utilities business.
From MarketWatch ● May 20, 2026
Or when that social worker had escorted him to his empty apartment to pack up a small bag of things, upending his life as yours had been upended, as mine had too.
From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
